Sacramento has some great restaurants but some of the best dishes I've eaten in town have been at friends' homes. Last weekend Mr. S. was on a trip to Miami with his brother so I accepted invitations to two parties being thrown by friends and went alone. The first was at the Casa de Queso and was being thrown by one of the cutest couples in town, Cary & Jenny, to celebrate the 100 year birthday of their Sacramento bungalow (aka the Casa de Queso). It was a BBQ/potluck so I went simple and made some of my carmelized onion-goat cheese tartlets. The food that everyone brought was delicious and I hope to share Cary's Chile Colorado recipe in a future post. It was so good, I went back for seconds!

The second party I attended was being thrown by my friend Melanie, who's a sweetheart and quite hilarious. The party was touted as a "Gourmet Ghetto" party and the idea was to bring a non-fancy "ghetto" dish and gourmet it up. I showed up over a hour late but was still able to taste several of the dishes. It was quite the creative spread. For my contribution, I decided to make smoked salmon deviled eggs using a recipe I found on The Red Spoon.The recipe is listed below: